Update: In a ruling filed Thursday, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ended most federal monitoring of Broward County jails, leaving only inmate mental health issues under the court’s continued review.

An evaluation of how the Broward Sheriff’s Office is handling inmate mental health concerns is expected in July. If that review finds no ongoing constitutional violations of inmate rights, Middlebrooks could completely dismiss the 41-year-old suit that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars and led to substantial improvements for inmates.

Sheriff Scott Israel credited the judge’s ruling to “stellar work” by members of his office to make sure inmate rights are being protected.

Both sides in the inmate class-action lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Office agreed that monitoring is no longer needed to ensure those rights are not being violated in the face of crowding, use of force by corrections officers, inmate violence and restrictions on religious practices. Middlebrooks’ order cemented that agreement.

An expert completed a review of those areas March 7. One major issue remains regarding the lawsuit first filed in 1976: Are inmates’ constitutional rights being violated in regard to needed mental health services? A separate evaluation of that issue is expected by July 15.

A settlement agreement reached last year said the case could be dismissed if the two evaluations turn up no constitutional violations.

The jails have been operating under a 1995 consent decree — a court agreement between the Sheriff’s Office, inmates and the county that acknowledged jail conditions were unconstitutional — that ordered formal monitoring.

The evaluation by Michael A. Berg reported jail operations in the areas he reviewed are substantially in compliance with the settlement agreement and he found no “violations of constitutionally protected federal rights overall.”

“The Broward County Sheriff’s Office has achieved and continues to maintain all of the provisions of the Court’s Orders in an exceptional and professional manner that exceeds the Court’s intended goal and minimum standards of constitutional law,” Berg reported.

Attorneys for the Broward Sheriff's Office, which operates the county's four jails, and lawyers representing inmates submitted a proposed settlement agreement Friday in federal court and are awaiting...

A decades-long federal monitoring of conditions at Broward County jails could be nearing an end.

Attorneys for the Broward Sheriff's Office, which operates the county's four jails, and lawyers representing inmates submitted a proposed settlement agreement Friday in federal court and are awaiting...

(Stephen Hobbs)

Chris Cloney, the attorney representing the inmates for more than 30 years in the class-action suit, said “Mr. Berg's expert report reflects the positive results of years of effort, much of it collaborative, by the parties.”

It’s a big step forward for a jail system that over the decades was frequently over capacity, cramming as many inmates on cots as possible into spaces that were not designed to handle them. In 1988, former Sheriff Nick Navarro went so far as to erect a tent at a Pompano Beach jail site to house the county’s overflow inmates until a federal judge ordered a stop to the practice.

The original lawsuit was brought by inmates complaining about crammed and decrepit conditions at the old Broward County Jail, where 1,200 inmates were packed into cells designed to hold 275. The suit was later expanded to include other mistreatment. The county has spent more than $100 million renovating and building new jail space to resolve the problems.

"It is beyond dispute that the litigation resulted in needed funding, new construction, and aggressive training that enabled the professional atmosphere and operations" currently at the jails, Berg wrote.

The litigation costs for Broward taxpayers likely exceed $5 million. Before the consent decree, the county spent $2.6 million on jail crowding fines, inmate attorney fees and expert witness costs related to the case. Another $1.6 million has been spent since 2004 for inmate attorney fees and expert witnesses, and attorneys from the ACLU are seeking more that $700,000 to cover their costs. A total breakdown of costs was not available.